Pepsi's Initial Foray Into Cause-Related Social Media

One of my social media students wrote a post about the Pepsi Refresh program a few days ago. It’s on our (closed) Ning community, an interesting story itself. Mark’s post gave me an additional perspective on the program that Pepsi announced in lieu of Super Bowl advertising this year. Thanks, Mark!

It turns out there was a precursor to the Refresh program. It was a $100,000 Green Effect contest which appears to have been a partnership between Sun Chips and National Geographic.

One of the winners was Hingham High School, where Mark’s son is a student. They received $20,000 to build a greenhouse to support a multidisciplinary program at the school. I can’t embed the entry video, but you can see that they’ve got a great ‘spokesperson.’ Both the entry video and the finalist video are linked on this page. The producer is a high school student—watch them both to see what kids can accomplish and the wonderful adults behind this idea.

The marketing point is that Pepsi did a trial program on a much smaller scale before launching the $20,000,000 Pepsi Refresh program. I can’t see any major differences in the two, but I’m willing to bet that Pepsi learned things from the Sun Chips program that made them more confident in dumping Super Bowl TV advertising and launching the social media effort. Is there any way that doesn’t make sense? The program is currently active and appears to be enjoying success. There are over 1 thousand project submissions in just the ecology section this month. You still have time to vote on your choice in any one of the six categories.

Congratulations to Hingham High School (they have a vibrant web site—figures!) for having this idea and the energy to see it through. They have great teachers, great high school kids, and I’m sure they’re going to have a great greenhouse and a lot of worthwhile programs. Be sure you watch the two videos.

I think Mark summed it up well:

So, what do you think about buying your way into the social media conversation? Had you heard about either project? So far, I've not purchased a Sunchip and a Pepsi -- but then again -- I did just send a message to 40 people about it!

You can argue about how Pepsi is going to measure the success of the program. But then, we’ve been arguing for years about how to measure the success of branding efforts in traditional media! Can a program like this—a program that gets consumers actively engaged in supporting an idea for branded funding—can it be any less successful?





P.S. Here are the happy winners on the green house site.

My Last Take on Super Bowl XLIV

You’ll see a lot of analysis of what took place on the Internet before, during and after the game. Watch for things like maps of the Twitter traffic, perhaps some Facebook traffic stats, and perhaps some on social network activity.

I watched on TV so I could concentrate on the ads, which I always enjoy. Maybe I missed a lot of what was going on, but I didn’t see much in the advertising that was directly related to websites and social media. Yes, they had their website and Facebook URLs, but that was about it. Maybe what I should have done is watch on the Internet; there were apparently several sites streaming it live. I like this one; it not only accessed the Super Bowl, it accessed the Puppy Bowl. Something for everyone, as I said last week! Thinking back to watching the Inauguration online, I saw a lot of things going on, but I was watching that on my Facebook page. The channel you use may have a lot to do with what you see, which I think is the essence of targeting.

If you want to review ads or vote for your favorites, there are many places to do that. As part of good coverage by Ad Age, Bob Garfield opines that most marketers should have stayed home. His ad-by-ad commentary is always thought-provoking, whether you agree or not. I like Garfield because he’s a curmudgeon, but even more because he focuses on whether customer benefits or key selling propositions are communicated. He’s right that advertising basics tend to get lost in the hoo-ha surrounding the Super Bowl.

I thought the actual chicken ad (Denny’s) was cute. What’s more important is that they are getting lots of mileage beyond the ad with the contest. They are also able to paint themselves as community-friendly in a time that’s economically difficult for many people. Or you can buy a chicken t-shirt What’s not working there?

I also checked out Intel, another of my long-time favorite advertisers. They’ve been at it for a long time and they know how to do TV, whether you liked Jeffry the Robot last night or not. There’s not much for them to say on their website except “watch it again,” which is exactly what they are doing. Their Facebook page is lively and had Super Bowl related posts yesterday, but they’re pretty much on to other issues today; the page is pretty busy this morning. Their Twitter page was lively yesterday with posts to point their followers to “geek humor” sorts of issues related to their ads. It’s pretty quiet this morning, which may suggest something about the way they use the two channels.

Let me close with two related issues. First, Pepsi again. The Ad Age coverage has an article about the Pepsi Refresh program, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. They quote Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi as saying Pepsi has shifted almost one-third of its budget to interactive and social media. That’s as big news as their skipping the Super Bowl in the first place.

Second, comScore recently reported that nearly 178 million US Internet users viewed over 33 billion videos were viewed in December. So don’t roll your eyes because Intel posted its ad on its website; people watch those, they watch on Facebook, and, of course, they watch on Facebook. So, in spite of the fact that it wasn’t entirely visible to the TV game viewer, savvy advertisers distribute their content widely. From what I saw on Facebook, I’ll bet Intel with be giving out little Jeffry the Robots at the next big IT conference! The work continues to be “integration” whether you’re talking about the rarified atmosphere of the Super Bowl or everyday communications.

And congratulations to the Saints—and to the wonderful city of New Orleans, which deserves all the good vibes it can get!

Marketers Prep for Super Bowl XLIV

The Friday before THE BIG GAME always brings bloggers out in force. Just as in the game itself, there are two opposing forces. One is the group who care about the football game; the other is the group who care about the ads. I count myself a member of the latter!

So here’s an update to what I wrote earlier about Super Bowl ads and Pepsi substituting a social media program. Coke has 3 ads; I thought one of them was going to be pushing their Expedition 206 program. Apparently not; it appears they are trying to get more fans on their Facebook page—as if they need them. There is apparently going to be a Living Positively theme to the ads and the charitable tie-in. Read about Coke's social media program (including the video about how Coke’s top-ranking page came about) on another recent post.

Animals seem to be big again this year. What’s even more interesting is the number of teaser ads that have been released (see some of them here)—that’s part of the traditional practice of building buzz before the game itself. Ads themselves will certainly be posted on YouTube and other sites during and after the game.

Read all about it in Ad Age’s special section. The one that interested me most was the article about marketers moving to ‘platforms’ and Garrick Schmitt describes some interesting ones. I prefer the explanation that Harry Gold of Overdrive Interactive gave in my class last night. It’s all the channels marketers are using to reach out to audiences—and more. Your blog has to integrate with your Facebook which has to interact with your Twitter—and on and on. These interconnected channels are the ways marketers “broadcast” these days; they are just on the web, not on the tube. Except maybe on Super Bowl day!

Not a football fan? I’m sure you’ll find counter programming. Ad Age had an article about the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. I checked some of the other usual suspects and didn’t find anything interesting—perhaps they don’t have a schedule that’s as easily searchable as Animal Planet’s! Note that the Subaru ad for the Puppy Bowl also has a charitable tie in. That’s social media in action also!

In other words, it’s a BIG DAY—for football, and also for social media. Enjoy!

Social Media Readies for Super Bowl 2010

Social media efforts for Super Bowl XLIV are already in full swing. It’s not news to advertisers that there’s lead time for all marketing programs. But there’s a difference in traditional ad planning and execution from social media planning and execution; you have to start earlier in social media if you want customer engagement and participation leading up to the big day.

This chart shows the online viewing of ads, which totaled more views than people watching the game live according to Ad Age (subscription required). The impact of social is interesting as is the difference between industry segments. In case you missed the article here are Ad Age’s recommendations for getting maximum benefit from your Super Bowl ads (assuming you’re planning to spend the $2.5 to 2.8 mil necessary to run one):

• Capitalize on pregame buzz
• Build virality into your creative
• Buy smart search terms
• Think real time
• Don't forget the call to action

It doesn’t take much thought to realize that all of this is aimed at leveraging the impact of a 30-second ad—and that most of it involves social media. The real-time issue I find the most fascinating. Listen to Ad Age:

Gone are the days when a CMO can enjoy an uninterrupted game in the network's luxury box. Today smart marketers will be talking on Twitter, tweaking search campaigns and leaving no rock unturned in their quest to drive impressions. Like E-Trade's baby, the star of H&R Block's spot, Tax Guy Murray, turned up on Twitter and actively reached out to people talking about the ad or taxes -- during the game. "My prediction is this year you'll have armies of marketers fanning the flames of their ads on Twitter," said Pete Blackshaw, exec VP, Nielsen Digital Strategic Services. "'Did you like it? Check out this link. Thanks so much for the high five.'

Oh, those poor CMOs!

One big piece of news is that Pepsi pulled out of the Super Bowl this year. They are concentrating their money in social media—in a cause-related program that’s almost guaranteed to generate engagement. Augie Ray has interesting commentary on the Forrester blog with good background links. The upshot of it is that Pepsi is spending $20 million on a program to support community-level projects. They are accepting proposals each month during 2010, starting January 13, 2010. Take a look at the top and bottom sections of the project home page. Have they forgotten anything for either project sponsors or the general public which is to vote on submissions?

They’ve also got some interesting things going on. One is that each category has an “ambassador,” one of whose roles seems to be to support applicants in that category. Some are also blogging; I’ll bet all of them will before it’s over.

The other is that there was a lot of buzz last week about initial glitches in the submissions. Apparently some people had problems submitting and others didn’t get a confirmation. Pepsi’s response is a textbook example of community monitoring and response. TechCrunch was quite critical, even though the Facebook page captures they published showed that Pepsi was all over the problem on the 13th, the day the site went live. Even better, go to their Facebook page. The last entry as of this writing is Jan. 15 and at the moment it has 86 comments. Read through them. Some applicants are still having problems, some are seeing their submissions going in properly. Applicants are talking to one another. Pepsi is talking to them. Pepsi is confirming some submissions directly to the Facebook commenter; they are promising to get back to others. They are listening—and responding! I’m not sure it gets any better and the applicants seem to be pretty happy and accepting of the fact that technology, especially in the beginning, can go awry. What’s important is that the marketer pays attention and fixes it, keeping users informed along the way!

Let’s revisit the initial premises. One is that you either do traditional broadcast advertising or you do social media. Wrong. You waste your money on traditional broadcast in this rarefied environment unless you do effective lead-up and post-game work. A lot of that is online and much of it may be social. It’s not one or the other.

The other is that a wise social media investment may pay greater long-run dividends than even a blockbuster Super Bowl ad. That remains to be seen. But stay tuned throughout 2010 to see how Refresh Everything goes. It’s certainly been exciting so far!